When the Gonski report was first released the Coaltion's response was 'great, but how are you going to pay for it?'. Now the government has outlined how it will be paid for the criticisms have become 'you can't rob Peter to pay Paul' (in reference to University cuts), from WA 'we're not getting enough', and from the Newman government what can only be described as non-committal gibberish.
The Coalition plan for education, while not clearly articulated seems to be: keep the current funding model, train better teachers, base teacher pay on performance, sack under-performing teachers, and provide prinicpals with more autonomy and the capacity to hire and fire.
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Chris advocates for an evidence based approach to improving student outcomes, rather than one based on rhetoric from advocates who have not been in a classroom for some time.
When speaking of political responses to education Chris says the following:
In significant part, the Gonski findings represent a challenge to the dominant narrative about the cause of low student achievement and how it should be addressed. It seems it may not be all the fault of teachers and schools after all. This is especially a challenge to governments and vested interests and think tanks which have long insisted on retaining a school only approach to reform.
The Prime Minister... has included proposals covering teacher quality, school autonomy, performance plans and transparency.
These are elements that Chris suggests are not critical to the kind of performance improvements we hope to see, and he is critical of the government for this. He is even more critical of the opposition, who he claims are 'lukewarm at best' about Gonski. Chris goes on to say:
Christopher Pyne has gone further than the government and tried to create a distracting agenda built entirely around teacher quality and class sizes.
In one sense Pyne has little alternative as he has displayed little understanding of equity in education. While Gilliard launched her national plan with just two mentions of the 'e' word, Pyne has managed to claim that there isn't actually an issue in Australian schools that revolves around equity and that's it's all about the outcomes of our poor students who aren't being given the right education in the first place. Tony Abbott managed to go further, claiming that the existing distribution of public funding shortchanges private schools.
What Chris does point to in relation to the evidence is that there are broadly 16 factors which are claimed to improve student outcomes. They are:
- More financial resources
- School leaders
- Smaller class sizes
- Group students by ability
- Study skills
- External testing
- Computer assisted instruction
- Homework
- Student self-reported grades
- Teacher development
- Teacher clarity
- Feedback
- Peer tutoring
- Direct instruction
- Class management
- Problem-solving teaching
According to Chris, the evidence suggests the the first eight approaches are less effective in improving educational outcomes than focusing on the second eight.
Looking at the two main approaches to the future of education in Australia, the independent analysis seems to say that Labor have it partly right, and the Coalition have it completely wrong.
The best chance for our children and for the future of the nation is to take the current approach to Gonski, begin to implement it, and then work tirelessly to improve it... that is of course if you actually give a Gonski... it's clear the likes of Christopher Pyne don't.
If you are interested in reading the full article by Chris Bonner, back issues of Dissent magazine can be purchased by following this link.